It’s heart-wrenching what various states are doing to trans people, especially young trans people. Missouri, you suck.
This is what is happening to trans people in Missouri. This is the result of endless cruelty against trans people by our own government. I wish there was a hell so Andrew Bailey could rot there forever. pic.twitter.com/REFASn8Nwc
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) April 20, 2023
Also, Texas, you suck. Florida, you suck. Tennessee, you suck. I could go on with this list, but basically, if any state has a Republican legislature or governor, it is a cesspool of cruelty. Stop electing those people, OK?
As many of the other commenters have said in the past, “the cruelty is the point”. Rethug politicians and their followers are inhuman monsters.
This is the same strategy as the Britiah tories.
As they cannot deliver tangible benefits for the majority of the population that do not belong to the “donor” class,
-they must deliver imaginary benefits (Brexit means sovereignty) or fire up the base about inner and outer enemies
(to quote a film “unemployment us caused by pixies”).
-and make a performance of fighting said enemies (EU, welfare cheats, immigrants) spiced with cruelty calculated to appeal to the base.
För instance, Braverman has tried ro get people go stop rescuing refugees coming in across the channel in flimsy boats that often capsize before reaching the shore.
There will also be a constant campaign in client media to deconstruct reality.
The BBC TV channel has been stocked with tory sympathizers.
Nearly all major newspapers are owned by media barons who like the message of “low taxers, no regulation”. All absurdities will be glossed over.
You left off North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, and most of the South.
These Red states seem to be in a race to see which ones can be he cruelest to children.
Strangely enough, there is a correlation between how fundie xian they are and how vicious they are. How often do you see “xian” and “hate” in the same sentence these days. Xian hate, xian hate preachers, xian hate cults, xian haters, etc..
What was it we just had on the other thread, those **** who want to argue philosophy, calmly and dispassionately? Yeah, they want to argue philosophy because they don’t know the practicalities. They don’t know the first thing about a transgender life and they don’t want to learn.
I remember one time this anti-trans **** on a forum gave me a list of questions to answer. At first I was puzzled. “Why is he bothering me with this stuff?” It was just bread-and-butter stuff, the basics of transgenderism, the kind of stuff you’d think anybody would know.
Then I realized he was asking because he didn’t know the answers to those questions himself. But he thought he was asking me hard questions that would stump me, that would shut me up. He thought he was very clever. He thought he had me.
Imbeciles! They don’t even know the basics, they don’t know the first thing about our lives, yet they think they have the right to tell us how to live those lives.
It’s one thing I find so impossibly depressing, how casually we human beings go about ruining other people’s lives. After all, if some can so casually kidnap people, transport them across an ocean and enslave them, is it any surprise that they’d do this kind of thing to a young transgender kid?
Once again, these laws against some medical treatments for Trans children are likely illegal.
The Federal court in Alabama has already stopped one such law in Alabama, pending trial.
The issues here are the Federal 14th amendment provisions for;
equal protection under the law
and
Due process.
A couple of days ago, there was an article on Abortion, Every Day that quoted the director of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Denver, Colorado. She said that when she comes to work, the parking lot is full of vehicles, most of them with Texas license plates. It’s about a 12-hour drive from Houston to Denver, and even longer from Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and other places in Texas, so the women in those cars and trucks have driven through the night to get to Denver. She said she goes around and offers them blankets “almost as if they are refugees.” And, yes, these women are refugees, Jessica Valenti at Abortion, Every Day, says. They are medical refugees. They, like the young person in the video above, are being driven out of their state, are being forced into becoming refugees. The Denver Planned Parenthood clinic director notes that the women who are able to get out of Texas and drive to Denver are the lucky ones, and she worries about all of those who can’t get out. Like this brave young person in the heart-wrenching video above. Indeed, the cruelty is the point. Additionally, women, transpeople–well, we aren’t perceived of as “real people”, so whatever cruelty is done to us is ok. We’re just seeing the tip of the proverbial iceberg here, right now.
Ah, Misery! I enjoyed growing up there in the northern reaches of the Ozarks until I got old enough to realize there was a much bigger and more interesting world “out there” and I left to go explore it. In my home town there were about 50 Catholic families, 20 black families, and one Jewish family, all of whom were “othered” to some extent, not to mention anyone thought to be LGBTQ of any kind. Glad to be gone.
Langston Hughes nailed it, back in the day:
“What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore, and then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over, like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags, like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?”
Not being a poet, I’d choose (e), All of the Above.
We’re trying, but we’re also vastly outnumbered down here.
Yeah, but those are the politicians that these brainless bigots WANT in the first place. They want government to act as the lynch mobs they want to unleash on the non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-Christians they hate but the law won’t allow them to create (yet). Appealing to their better nature is useless because these shits don’t have one.
@ Akira MacKenzie #10
“Appealing to their better nature is useless because these shits don’t have one.”
Yeah. If you have the stomach to look at the actual Twitter thread concerning the young man above, you’ll see that some haters have found the thread and they’re enjoying themselves. They see the serious harm that they’re doing to a life and they mock that life. If America cannot defeat those creatures, it’s dead.
The liberals and Democrats decided that the dream needs to be served up piecemeal, tiny-bit-by-tiny-bit, but only with the permission of the racist, sexist, bigots opposed to such change.
Heaven forbid that the government does something right without a consensus of Americans; the stupidest, most greedy people on Earth!
BTW angry French demonstrators made their way into the Paris stock exchange today to protest the increased pension age.
Say what you will about the French, but they do not take shit from their leaders.
@3 raven said: Also, Texas, you suck. Florida, you suck. Tennessee, you suck. I could go on with this list,…
You left off North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, and most of the South.
I reply: and you MUST add Scarizona, ‘where the astroturf meets the sociopath surf’. The atrocities of Scarizona are too numerous to list. Sen. Sinenema is near the top of the list.
PZ, readers and commenters, regarding at least some fairness, please read about Minn. Gov Walz:
https://digbysblog.net/2023/04/20/were-banishing-hunger-from-ours/
@ 13
American Liberal Democrats: “GASP! How uncouth! How vulgar! How divisive and partisan! How… (shudder) violent! Don’t they know that they’re just suppose to wear a ribbon or a pink pussy hat on their label to show their disapproval of neoliberalism and fascism?”
I try…I really try…but I’m almost always on the losing side.
I live in Missouri’s second congressional district, which is gerrymandered Republican; and my U.S. Rep. is the deplorable Ann Wagner. I vote against her every chance I get, but it doesn’t help. Fortunately, I live in a somewhat purple precinct where I see lots of Democratic and pro-union yard signs; and my state legislators are reasonable people; but they’re in the minority, too.
Yes, almost all of Missouri, which is mostly rural, is chock full of right-wing nuts.
We have to create a Trans Overground Network to get these fellow Americans out of the grip of fascist legislatures all too ready to imprison them and anyone who speaks up for them. Harriet Tubman showed us how. Of course, when we do Florida will pass a Fugitive Tranny law.
Haven’t some states passed Fugitive Baby-Killing Sluts Laws?
I’m glad to see that MOAG Bailey’s actions are finally getting some national attention, but one thing that seems to be overlooked in most of the coverage of it is that this isn’t a ban. It’s worse.
The way this “Emergency Rule” is written, it doesn’t technically ban gender-affirming outright. Rather, it creates a long list of restriction specifically calibrated to function as a ban, with a side benefit of also stripping people on the spectrum and those with mental illness of certain basic rights.
The scariest part, however, and the part I don’t see people talking about, is in the way the ER is set up to do its dirty business. See, the only way this ER can be enforced as written is to require medical professionals to inform the MOAG’s office about all patients seeking any form of gender-affirming care, so that they can be “monitored.” In other words, it’s specifically written to create a list of all people who’ve sought gender-affirming care in the state of Missouri.
This ER isn’t just about denying care, as bad as that is. This is about a group of people who’ve stated outright that they want to eradicate transgender and non-binary people collecting the names, addresses, and complete medical histories of those people.
They’re building their kill list.
This is genocide, pure and simple, and it’s high fucking time that liberals treat the people pushing it as the fascists they are. Me and my loved ones are so angry right now at the inaction of so-called “allies” to do anything but write letters and peacefully protest. That shit isn’t fucking working, they are literally killing us in some of the most agonizing ways possible. The way the US Constitution is set up is simply incompatible with liberation for marginalized people (and deliberately designed to be so) and ill-equipped at combating fascism, and the sooner people realize that, the better. Fuck this goddamn country built on genocide and slavery to its very core. And fuck liberals who insist that marginalized people stay peaceful as our lives and communities are being uprooted and destroyed.
Shermanj @ 15
A toast for gov. Walz.
This might not be legal.
This Attorney General in Missouri is writing a series of laws without any sort of legal basis that I can see.
This is dictatorial Rule by Decree AFAICT.
In every state, the legislature passes laws and the governor signs them.
Well, OK there are multiple legal problems with this Emergency Rule.
.1. It’s doubtful that the AG has the legal authority to do what he just did.
He is using “a consumer protection law normally used to prosecute fraudulent business practices,” to dictate health care for both adults and minors.
.2. He is flat out lying. Trans medical care is not “experimental” any more than any other health care.
.3. He is already being sued by the ACLU and other legal defense groups.
The Federal courts have already ruled against restricting some Trans care in minors and adults would be an even more protected class.
They cite the 14th Amendment Equal under the law and Due Process rules.
Mostly Bailey is a scary clown doing a Virtue Signaling Dance for right wingnut xians. “See, look at me, look at me. I can hate more and better than any of you. Ook, Ook, hate, hate.”
PS The collecting names thing is also pretty disturbing and likely also illegal.
We’ve seen that movie many times and it never ends well.
He is launching a witch hunt for Trans and LGBTQI people.
PPS Is this what the GOP means by “Cancel Culture” and “Freedom”?
Strangely enough, the current Evil Clown, I mean Attorney General Andrew Bailey in Missouri was never elected.
He was appointed by the governor after the elected one was elected to congress.
If you want to know how safe your state is (and how likely it is to become safer or less safe over the course of the next 2 years) see Erin in the Morning’s latest anti-trans legislative risk map. Erin updates several times during the state legislative sessions.
@ raven, #23
While that may be true, that really only matters insofar as officers of the law are willing and able to enforce the law. As the State Attorney General, Andrew Bailey is the top law enforcement figure in the state, so there’s not really anyone who could overrule him.
The only people at the state level who could rein him in are (presumably; I took a course in MO Civics, but it was over 20 years ago, so I don’t remember exactly who has the authority to do what) the governor and the legislature, and that’s not likely to happen. As you pointed out, Governor Mike Parsons appointed Bailey, and has thus far been in lockstep with Bailey’s other acts of questionable legality, like keeping innocent people in prison over the objections of local prosecutors. Meanwhile, the legislature is churning out anti-LGBTQ+ legislation just as fast as they can, so they’re unlikely to be of any help.
Short of the federal government stepping in, I don’t see the legality (or lack thereof) of Bailey’s actions mattering much. Thus far, the Justice Department has shown little appetite for going after the anti-trans crowd, even where they’re plainly violating the civil rights of trans and non-binary people.
You’re right that he’s abusing the law he used to do this. Even if it could be stretched to justify banning certain treatments, there’s no way it was ever meant to deny a whole suite of physician-supported medical treatments for entire categories of people.
You’re also right that he’s lying- his justification for this ER was pretty much 100% composed of bullshit. That bit about there being a network of hundreds of secret clinics experimenting on children is just reheated Satanic Panic leftovers.
So yeah, it’s probably not legal. I’m just not sure that it will matter enough to change anything.
Missouri doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
There is the Federal government and Federal courts which are in charge of administering the US constitution. States can’t overrule Federal law.
I did post above earlier about the Federal court issuing an injunction in Alabama.
Yeah, Andrew Bailey lied about everything and then lied some more.
All his evidence that Trans medicine is “experimental” is just made up.
He isn’t even trying to be credible.
He even cited Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria which is a made up diagnosis that never, ever existed.
That remains to be seen.
These days anything is possible, no matter how ugly it is.
For 50 years women had the right to control their own bodies and lives with Roe versus Wade and look what happened a year ago.
Protect and defend your rights or you won’t have them for long.
Fighting back
https://youtu.be/vmut4dPa07g
And the House has just passed a ban on trans athletes in women’s and girls’ sports nationwide. It’s not going to pass the Senate or the President, but it does show what the Rethugulan Party’s priorities are.
moonslicer:
In 2018, a Senate NH subcommittee was debating whether gender identity should be included in such things as employment protection. They had to move the venue to make space, at one point. Some people from outside the state flew in to argue the case against us, and many, many residents of the state spoke in favor. We PACKED the chambers, repeatedly, across several weeks, every time we were on the docket. The hearings went over time by hours in order to accommodate all the speakers. And late in the afternoon on one day, after several hours of testimony, a member of the subcommittee asked, “Now… is a ‘trans woman’, is that a man who wants to be a woman, or a woman who wants to be a man?”
Apparently, until that point, he could not be arsed to know something utterly basic to the debate.
Grace
Yep. Fuck these states and fuck mine too. Tried not electing these assholes but they rigged the elections. Anybody got ideas about getting out? Looking very hard at MN right now.